


Not the Knight Before Christmas

by DenseHumboldt



Series: Advent 2019 [1]
Category: Captain Marvel (2019)
Genre: Advent 2019, Drabble Collection, F/M, One Shot Collection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 01:14:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 21,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21729004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DenseHumboldt/pseuds/DenseHumboldt
Summary: A collection of one shots or drabbles for Advent 2019 that are unrelated to the Dragon and The Star Advent storyRatings will vary by Story. Check Author's notes on chapter for clarification
Relationships: Carol Danvers & Maria Rambeau, Carol Danvers & Maria Rambeau & Monica Rambeau, Carol Danvers/Yon-Rogg, Soren/Talos (Marvel)
Series: Advent 2019 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1565644
Comments: 134
Kudos: 55





	1. You Make It Together/It's Special

**Author's Note:**

> Rated: T
> 
> Prompt #9 from Fictober 2019 prompt list.

"There is a certain taste to it."

"Can you not say it like that?"

"Like what?"

"As if it's bad."

"I didn't say it was bad."

"It doesn't matter. I am trying again," Vers exhaled and blew her bangs off her slightly sweaty face. It was warm in the kitchenette. She had clinging to her forehead a little bit of flour. She had discarded her hoodie long ago and was in a black tank. Yon could see flour on her shoulder like freckles.

He was at a loss. His rookie seemed consumed by something he couldn't understand. Spread about her kitchen were bowls and pits from moragu fruit.

"Can I help?" He asked looking at chaos and feeling lost in it already, but this seemed important to her.

"You don't seem to understand what I am doing," she said scraping away the failed dish into the compactor. It whirred and sucked, whatever the soft blob was meant to be it was no more.

"You don't seem to understand what you are doing," he countered. He unzipped his hoodie and threw it over hers. It really was too warm in the apartment.

She brushed bits of moragu fruit and detritus into a bowl and they followed their brethern into the compactor. She trapped her lip between her teeth and looked at him with her hands on her hips.

"Did your mother ever make food. Like its cold out and you come home from the academy and the house smells so good?" Her voice filled with longing as she looked down. She noticed the flour on her stomach and began to brush it away. He reached over to her and brushed the constellation from her shoulder. She looked at his hand and then at him. He stepped away and she turned back to the ingredients wiping her forehead with the back of her hand.

"It doesn't get cold on Hala," he said. Gently reminding her, but Vers knew she remembered snow. Not heaps and heaps like some planets but chill air and red leaves giving way to grey slush and sparkling nights. "And my mother doesn't cook."

"Who taught you?" She asked and she began peeling moragu fruit. They were frustrating, their insides bursting and wet. He took it from her as she began to swear. She licked the orange juice that ran down her fingers. Yon watched her and she wondered if he was disgusted by how unsanitary it was.

"Everyone gets kitchen duty when they graduate from the Academy," he said with a smile as he reached for a towel to throw over his shoulder. Of course he would be confident in the kitchen, he was confident everywhere.

She had been a little ashamed when he had caught her struggling. He had been confused she could tell but as Kree-Lar became slowly lit by coloured lights and the Zenith Day approached Vers felt consumed by the desire to do something. To remember something.

"Why?" She asked leaning against the counter. Looking at him as he sliced away the side she had impaled with her knife.

"It keeps the trigger happy cadets humble and teaches the quiet ones to swear," he answered moving to stand in front of her. The kitchenette was narrow and he was close.

"Which were you?" She asked with a twitch of her eyebrow.

"Guess," he teased her. He used the towel to brush away a bit of flour she missed, but she still felt it, his finger beneath the towel tracing the contour of her face. "Close your eyes and open your mouth."

She breathed hard through her nose, scoffing at him but she did what he said. He placed the sliver of moragu fruit she had abused on the tip of her tongue. She drew it into her mouth. With her eyes closed she couldn't see how closely his eyes watched her.

"Cooking is like any task. You cannot let your emotions distract you. You want this memory back, Vers? We will find it. Just focus on what it is you are trying to capture," he said softly as she chewed. Everything always seemed so clear and whole until she tried to grasp it. Even the moragu fruit with its flesh like bursts of sweet water was wrong, she shook her head.

"I just-" she tried to find the words. She remembered peeling. Skin like waxed paper that unwound and unwound into snakes. The crisp snap of these tails. The only part they could eat while baking. She remembered flesh like snow with pips like bird tracks. She remember hands over hers working dough between her fingers. She remembered lights like Zenith day lights. "Its something you make together and it tastes like spices but smooth and sugary. And there is fruit. It's special."

She opened her eyes and reached for the moragu fruit with its dark undulating pit and orange glistening flesh.

"Not like this," she sighed putting it down again. Yon-Rogg nodded. She could see him listening and thinking. It both made her feel less crazy and more crazy. Surely what she described was a thing?

"You remember what Zenith day is?" He asked her. She rolled her eyes. She may have forgotten at first but she wasn't forgetting things anymore. Yon moved back to the counter and began cracking eggs. He separated them yolks from whites. Deftly and efficiently, his hands cradling the shells as the yolks jiggled and the whites slithered away. "We celebrate the awakening of the Supreme Intelligence and the light it brought to the Kree. We exchange gifts from our colonies. Luxuries we only have because the Supremor taught us to break the chains of all species." 

He discarded the egg shells into the compactor and nodded to the fruit in her hand, "the moragu fruit comes from a colony. Even if we can grow it here now in biodomes it was something shared with us. So we eat a cake made of it. Perhaps this is what you remember?"

He set about gathering the pieces he would need. Vers counter was full of small dishes and open hemorrhaging bags.

"Melt the butter a little," he instructed. She quirked her lips and held her palm up so he could place a small ramekin in her palm.

"Isn't that an unauthorized use of power?" She teased.

"Then you will have to exhibit control," he gave her an answering grin as she gently heated her palm, placing the ramekin on the counter once the butter began to slip. He watched her from the corner of his eye with a pleased grin barely on his lips.

He handed her a bowl and whisk, "beat these as hard as you can."

Vers hesitated before she took the bowl. Yon-Rogg added the butter to the egg yolk and tipped in a little sugar.

"This doesn't seem like Service fare," Vers observed as he whipped up the ingredients. They changed from dark yellow to light as they expanded.

"It's not. My mother may not be a great cook but our housekeeper was," he smiled at the memory. Dinah had been no nonsense. If the boys slipped in the kitchen to steal a treat before the Zenith day guests could be served she would crack spoons on their knuckles and put them to work. What a haven such a task became for Yon. She had taught him this. It had been the first praise he had earned in his blue blooded family.

"And they let you get your delicate hands dirty?" She asked putting aside the fluffy peaks of egg whites and reaching for a sliver of Moragu. In a lightning fast motion, Yon flicked her knuckles with the sugar and flour coated spoon. Vers laughed and licked what had stuck to the back of her hand. He watched her until she caught him and he looked back to the batter, folding in what she had beaten.

"Indolence was not allowed," he answered her, pouring the smooth glossy batter he made into a pan. "And it's not allowed now. There will be dishes."

Vers saluted and began gathering discarded bits of chaos from around the kitchenette as he lay a swirl of slivered moragu fruit with the delicate skin intact, into the surface of the cake.

While it cooked they washed dishes. Yon scrubbing the flour from the bowls and Vers drying because she knew where everything went. This was not automated as Starforce members were never expected to generate such a pile of dishes. Trust Vers to circumvent expectations.

"Where did you even get these?" He asked as he submerged another bowl in the cooling water. He would need to refresh soon. Vers shrugged.

"I asked around," she said making little stack on the counter she had wiped down. She pointed to each stack in turn, "Bron-Char, Att-Lass, Minn-erva-"

"Minn-Erva loaned you something?"

"I knocked in her door and she asked what it would take for me to go away."

"Why didn't you ask me?" He leaned against the counter and dried his hands. She looked at him out of the side of her eye and pressed her lips together. "What?"

"You would have asked why I wanted it."

Yon could not argue that. "So?"

"I just feel like when I try to remember things, it's -it's not what you want from me," she struggled to find the words. "What if I can't let go and I am never the warrior you want me to be?"

"Because of cake?" He asked slowly. Tilting his head to look at her. She still had flour in her hair. She laughed sadly.

"Cake I may have made up," she shrugged her shoulders helplessly. He pulled her closer in the small too warm kitchen and used the towel to brush away all the remaining flour. He wondered how many failed attempts were in the compactor. What she had fed him when he arrived had been a foul concoction to be sure. She was leaning into him he realized. His gentle stroking had removed flour but he still had one hand moving through her hair. She was watching him intently.

"Vers-" a whistling sound made them jump apart.

The cake was done. Vers pulled it from the oven the surfacr glistening red and runny creamy pools. It looked like the cloud cover of a red rock planet.

"It might be too beautiful to eat," she crinkled her nose at him. She looked so pleased. He took a fork and pierced the custard surface.

"Nothing is too beautiful to fulfill its purpose," he said sagely lifting the fork to her mouth, one hand cupped beneath. She opened wide, "blow."

She rolled her eyes and pursed her lips exhaling to cool the cake. She hummed when she ate it off the fork. It wasn't right, it wasn't what she remembered but it was sweet and creamy. The flesh of the moragu fruit burst in steaming spiced rivers over her tongue. Yon-Rogg watched her with a question in his eyes.

"It's very good," she answered fanning her mouth as she swallowed the hot mouthful.

"But not right?" He asked her smiling. She shook her head. "We will keep trying."

He took his own forkful and she watched him lift it to his mouth. He blew away the steam before tucking it between his lips. She didn't know what made her do it but she stepped forward and pressed her lips to his. Yon-Rogg froze. She felt the motion of his jaw as he swallowed. He lifted his free hand and it hovered over her shoulder. She drew back as if burned.

"Why did you-" he began.

"You don't like sweet things," she answered abruptly. "I was afraid you would spit it out. It would be a waste."

He leaned into her, she could not tell if he was mad or just shocked. He was breathing hard as if trying to contain a lecture that pushed at his throat.

"Was the plan to catch it?" He asked incredulously.

She opened her mouth then closed it again. She didn't know. She wanted to run but they were in her apartment. She took a step back but he followed her. She looked around wondering what her escape route would be other than melting into a puddle of embarrassment. He caught her shoulders. Snatched her as her eyes darted to the bedroom. She could lock herself in there. She forced herself to look at him. She could withstand a lecture. She could show him the respect of taking his punishment.

He lifted a hand to her face. It hovered there. As if he did not know how to proceed. His fingers that were still on her arm dug into her. She wondered if he would grab her face as she has seen other commanders do when they forced their rookies to look at them. Her heart pounded and she tried to decide what was behind his eyes. Finally, he turned his hand and brushed the backs of his fingers over her cheek. His pinky finger extending so for the barest moment her lips parted around it.

His hand moved behind her head and he stepped into her. She held her breath.

He kissed her. He knew he shouldn't. He was her commanding officer. He was her mentor. He was a dozen things to her she couldn't know. He had more reasons not to kiss her than to kiss her, but the need was too great. She was too much and at the same time not enough. He wanted more. He wanted everything she could offer. He wanted to be one more thing to her; her lover.

He was too rough, she made a sound against his mouth. He forced himself to ease his hold. He moved his mouth away and bumped her nose with his. Once, she opened her eyes. The second time he did it she smiled. He kissed her again, this time her smile let him passed her lips as she relaxed her kiss and let him slide his tongue along her lips. Touching hers. She tasted, he thought, of home.


	2. It's Tradition/ I Just Might Kiss You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G
> 
> A good reminder this advent is about quantity not quality lol
> 
> 💜💙💚❤DH

There was something about the approaching of Zenith day that changed the temperature of a room. Everyone seemed lighter, hopeful about the coming year. Vers had been ill last Zenith day, she could see the decorations through the windows of her hospital room but it hadn't been the same as being a part of it.

As she came down the steps of the training facility, Att-Lass was coming up the stairs. They were about to meet on the landing, she looked up and smiled at him. His eyes went wide and he sprinted forward tackling her against the railing of the steps.

"Att-Lass," she said in surprise. "What in the name of the old gods?"

"Watch out or I just might kiss you," he teased pointing at the ceiling above the landing.

"What?" Vers asked blowing her bangs out of her eyes so she could see what he pointed at a gnarled orange twist hanging from the ceiling.

"Halikan Root, when you meet under it you have to kiss," Att-Lass smiled at her. He winked and she laughed. That did sound familiar.

"Watch out," Bron-Char called from the bottom of the stairs before bounding up them. "It is tradition to try and catch as many couples as possible. Some people even carve their name on the root for credit."

"Does that one have a B and C on it by chance?" Vers asked. Bron-Char winked at her.

"This is a good place. Not enough people pay attention on the stairs."

"Halikan root violates at least three policies," Yon called from the top of the stairs. He began to descend in his usual fleet footed stride. He kept his eyes intentionally downcast. Att-Lass stepped quickly away from Vers. "I suggest you remove it before someone in Command sees."

Bron-Char reached up and easily plucked the root from where it hung. He tossed it to Vers.

"Quick, Rookie, hide it."

Yon-Rogg met them on the landing and took the root from Vers. He handed it back to Bron-Char.

"Is this a debriefing?" Yon looked around to each warrior on the landing. He clapped his hands, "keep moving."

Vers mouthed the word "grumpy" behind Yon's back as she followed him down the stairs and the others went up.

* * *

The next time Vers encountered the root was in the gearing up room. She was coming through the double wide door, as Minn already suited up was trying to leave.

Inside the room, from the other members of Starforce was a chorus of ooohs. Vers looked up and saw the small knot of orange tendrils. This one had greens sprouting from it. Vers froze and looked at Minn who was looking at her.

"Don't even think of it, Twinkle Fists," Minn-Erva scowled. "Tradition doesn't make it a law."

Vers raised her hands and slipped into the room. "Don't look at me. I have better ways of getting a date."

Minn-Erva opened her mouth to argue when Yon-Rogg appeared at the door. No one in the room breathed as Minn-Erva's eyes locked on him. Vers thought she might be trying to sink into the door jamb. No one ooh'd and Vers felt an uncomfortable feeling crawl up her spine.

Yon stopped as he looked at Minn-Erva's strange stuttering behaviour. His eyes swept upward and saw the root. He sighed and yanked it down.

"Three. Policies," he repeated clearly. He gave Bron-Char a significant look but Vers saw Korath was the one who would not meet the Commander's eye.

* * *

The seven days leading up to Zenith day and the five after it were sacred to the Kree. Any military units that remained Hala-bound were on relaxed duty and even those stationed other places had their own way of marking it.

Att-Lass told her stories of sneaking in their covers to small taverns and drinking until the early hours or burrowing in the base and rigging their console to flash its lights in time with Zenith day songs. It was something Vers had waited all year for. To finally feel a part of her people again.

She tried not to think about that she didn't know any Zenith day songs or that she didn't know what she was supposed to do on the day. It was here and she would figure it all out.

Yon-Rogg was not of the same mind as the others when it came to Zenith day. Though he respected the relaxed hours, he expected the time they gave him to be doubly as productive. Vers ached from quick fire rounds of simulation after simulation.

She exited the pod and gripped her side and her head as she sat on a bench. Yon stayed behind in thr room, reviewing the footage. Only Att-Lass took notice of her.

He crouched in front of her as she groaned forward. She heard the crack of a cannister and she lifted her eyes to see him offering her a slim bottle. She took it and drank it back desperate for the nausea and the ache of constant cycling through the simulation to end. Whatever it was he gave her it managed to be bitter and sour while it fizzed against her tongue. She made a loud noise of disgust and Att-Lass laughed. He put his hands affectionately on her shoulders and shook her as she let her head loll and she made protesting sounds.

"You're gonna get used to it," he assured her. He shook her until she started to laugh and she gripped onto him.

"You're going to make me puke," she said between coughing laughs. The fizz churned in her system.

He froze as Yon-Rogg came in. Vers stopped laughing and wiped the back of her mouth on her sleeve. She was suddenly aware of how bad her mouth tasted. Yon's eyes flicked over Att-Lass as he stood stood slowly. Att returned to the gear station to continue stripping off sensors. Vers wonders if Yon-Rogg had been tracing their movements on the monitor. She kept her eyes lowered as she stripped off her gloves.

She could feel his eyes on her for a moment longer before he went to his own gear bank and began to remove his sensors.

"Everyone is dismissed except Vers," he said lowly. There was a murmur of 'yes sirs' and Vers felt nervous. Did he know she was struggling with the quick turn around on the simulations? Did he know how disorientating she found it? Was there something in the playback?

As the others filed out she stood and crossed to her bank. She pressed sensors into the notched foam that held them.

"Are you okay?" Yon said softly. He didn't turn his head. She kept her eyes forward too.

"Of course," she answered.

"Vers-"

"Did the playback look good? Did I impress you?" She turned to him smiling. Even though he was her Commander she dared him to push the subject. He shook his head as he snapped closed his bank and slotted it into place. She followed suit.

"Grab your coat," was his only answer as he walked from the room.

* * *

He walked them up to the main strip. Above them channels of transports made clean lines through the sky. It never got truly cold in Kree-Lar, there were too many buildings, too many exhausts belching out clean out air from the smooth efficient systems, but as they climbed higher through the zig-zagging pedestrian bridges they rose above the forced tropical clouds and the heat dissipated.

Vers wrapped her arms around her middle and jogged to keep up with Yon.

"Are you cold?" He asked as she fell into step with him. She shook her head.

"Where are we going?"

Yon pointed at the sky but didn't answer her. Vers rolled her eyes and shuffled to keep up with his long strides.

They reached a bridge that crossed into a large crystalline tower. Inside was an open chasm and if she looked over the railing she could see all the way down to the bottom floor. It was like standing inside a shard of frosted glass. Beyond the walls, the sky was distorted. The blue of evening rippled.

Kree were beginning to gather and mill around the edges of the balconies. She could see the dark dotting of them all the way down. She raised an eyebrow at him. It was warmer in the building but not by much. She tucked her hands in her pockets.

Yon leaned against the rail so he could look at her. She started to mimic him, but he tugged her arm to keep her facing the interior. She let him.

"Be patient and watch," he said softly to her.

She did, all she saw was crowds and the sky deepening outside.

"I know I do not come off as festive as the others, Vers," he started. She quirked her lips to tease him but there was something in his look that made her close her mouth and listen.

"The walls of this building are Krilelian crystal. An amazing conductor. A resource of unbelievable potential. It forms exclusively on the ice giant Krilel. An underpopulated planet on the outer rim of the Halstar galaxy."

"Have you been there?" She asked looking at the walls, imagining giant shards raining down and impaling the snow.

"Once," he answered. He looked around him, his eyes scanning the crowd. "It was one of my first postings from the Academy."

"So a long time ago," she teased.

"A lifetime," he answered back he looked like he almost wanted to smile as he bent his head. "The Kree Colony on Krilel no longer stands."

"What happened?" She turned to look at him. He was quiet for a moment. His eyes taking on a far off quality.

"It was the third day of the Zenith Advance, we were lax. We overindulged. We felt safe. There was routine, protocols that should have been followed. They were allowed to lapse. If they had been followed perhaps we would have noticed the slow increase in our numbers."

"Skrulls," Vers filled in for him. He nodded.

"It was over almost as soon as it started. In their raw form the crystals are unstable, dangerous. I don't know if it was deliberate or an accident from trying to move vulnerable crystals from our stores to their ships, but there was an explosion. It triggered more. Then panic."

It was dark now, Vers looked around as Yon spoke, wondering why no lights came on. Everything on Hala was automated, there was not pause between daylight and illumination. She was tense as she heard the murmur begin. She leaned over the edge as saw a single gold orb of light snaking up the crystal. It was followed by more and more. Different colours, different sizes. Some clustered together so they moved in unison.

"One light for every Kree lost," he answered her. He did not turn to watch as others did. She knew he watched her.

"How many survived?"

"Not enough. Not as many as should have," he answered. His voice was thick with unspoken words. He blamed himself. "Maybe I am too hard-"

"It is not easy, letting go of the past," Vers answered for him.

They watched the lights ascend the tower, gathering to glow above them.

"They'll stay until the last day of Zenith," he provided. "Then they will descend again."

"I would like to see that," she said her eyes tracing the clusters.

"We'll come back," Yon agreed.

The crowd began to disperse. Kree watched them as they passed. Yon self-conciously pulled up his hood. They stopped short as a little boy broke through the crowd.

"Are you Starforce?" He asked. Yon paused. Vers knew he was feeling sombre but he managed a warm smile.

"Yes," he answered as the boy's mother caught up to him.

"Tenn, don't run off," she scolded. "Sorry."

"They're Starforce," the boy pointed and his mother grabbed his hand and made him stop. "They saved you, right? Tell them"

The woman blushed, she assured the boy "Later, later."

She ducked her head murmuring 'thank you', as she kept the boy moving. Others seemed drawn to them. Vers could feel Yon growing edgy. This wasn't why they had come. She grabbed his arm and pulled him into a small alcove cut in the crystal. Above them the lights were refracted dozens of times creating a galaxy.

Yon turned his head from the crowd, his face obscured by the hood. Vers had seen in the faces of the crowd recognition, gratitude, she knew her Commander had not said all there was to say about that day. The looks of the crowd said the rest.

He was so close to her, closer than he stood when they took the rail together. He gave off heat chasing away the chill that had crept around her. She could see the ticking of his jaw as his teeth clenched.

She stretched up on tiptoes, her hands balancing on his shoulders, and brushed her lips over his. He froze so she stood a little higher, pressing another lingering kiss to the corner of his mouth.

"Vers-" he looked at her with wide gold eyes as she sunk to her feet again. His hands tensing and untensing.

"Thank you, for saving them," she said looking out at the moving wave of parents and children.

"I-"

"Don't worry about it," she said pointing up, he moved his hood so he could see above them the small blossoming Halikan root. "It's tradition."


	3. Not Every House/ A Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating E
> 
> This is Danni's fault, although probably not what she meant.

"It doesn't need to be this accurate," Carol argued as the scan flickered over her again.

"It's a matter of integrity. Your materials are substandard," Yon responded. He moved his fingers through the projection, this was his third mode of failure analysis. It had stopped being cute. Mostly. He pulled in on the back right corner. "You have too much weight on this joint."

"They aren't materials, Yon. They are cookies," Carol snapped a corner off the roof and popped it in her mouth. It was too hard to be enjoyable, but in the way all things at Christmas were just left of how they should be and yet for a few short days they were perfect. She went to break off a tree but he stopped her hand.

"You've altered the variables," he told her with a serious look. He began to level his scan at the construction one more time.

"No, no more scans," Carol cried out in mock frustration. With one hand she grabbed the wrist with the scanner strapped to it. With the other she grabbed a fat red jujube and held it to his mouth. He growled at her as they fake struggled for his wrist scanner but out of instinct his mouth opened to her. Her heart beat a little faster, the way it always did, when she could feel the heat of his breath on her skin.

He made a face as he squished the gelatin between his teeth. Carol grabbed a handful and fed him two more. He hated it but he opened his mouth despite himself.

"These are vile. Are they petroleum based?" He retaliated, his cheek bulging with candy. He grabbed his own handful and pressed them one after another past her lips. She laughed leaning forward, her hand still grappling his wrist between them, and kissed him as she swallowed the gooey candies that stuck to her teeth.

"You two are gross," Monica interupted them. "And total dorks."

Carol released Yon and looked at her niece. She was still tingling and she wanted to laugh but she swallowed it, blushing a little that she had forgot about Monica.

"You'll be a dork too, when you're older," she very studiously picked up the icing to reinforce the back corner. She glanced up at Monica. "Also don't tell your mom."

Like she has said magic words, Monica's face lit up.

"Trade me," she said. She selected a jujube and placed it carefully in her own mouth. She made intense eye contact with Carol as she chewed. Yon's eyes flicked between them as he set up more perfectly straight gingerbread trees in front of their increasingly garish and slanting house.

"What do you want?" Carol narrowed her eyes at the girl, the icing bag held aloft and dripping. Monica tapped her chin exaggeratedly. It was going to be bad. Carol knew it.

"Let me borrow your Krylorian dress for the winter formal."

"No," Carol didn't even pause. Yon looked at her as if it seemed a reasonable favour in exchange for not being forced into separate rooms by Maria "Not in Front of My Baby" Rambeau. She read his look. "Not the Krylorian one."

She mimed the cross body straps and understanding donned in Yon's eyes as he traced her movements. He remembered that dress. And the way Carol looked in it.

"No," he agreed. "Not that one."

"Come on, it's so cool."

"Your mom will kill me," Carol returned to sticking peppermints onto the roof. To her annoyance the corner did seem to be bulging ominously. Monica sighed. Only fourteen year olds could sigh that way.

She was silent for a bit. The house was becoming slowly more drenched in icing and candy. Carol watched Yon's hand tense as he resisted running another scan.

"So, like, does the whole blood bond thing mean you're dating or whatever?" Monica asked keeping her eyes on her section of roof. Carol went very still, as if Monica had neatly coiled a viper on the table. Yon was looking at her, again. Carol cleared her throat, she kept piping.

"Where did you hear those words?"

"They're common words, Auntie Carol."

"Did Maria tell you?" She was screwing this up. Her stomached tensed she already knew she was not going to do this right. She considered knocking in a gingerbread wall to distract everyone.

"It just means we share some aspects of our DNA because of a tranfusion. That's not why-" she trailed off. She felt her face getting hot. She didn't want to look at Yon.

"So you're, like, related?" Monica asked with an edge of confusion.

"No. No, it's more like we're really good friends."

"I don't kiss my friends," Monica answered. She looked at her Aunt with a curious leading look. Carol wished a hole would open up beneath her. Or Yon would say something.

Yon rubbed behind his ear. A quick motion. Carol mimicked him.

" _Friends_?" He growled in Kree, his translator off, Monica cocked her head at him.

" _You could help_ ," Carol sighed.

" _You're doing such a good job_." He was teasing her but she could hear in his voice a tinge of frustration. She was insulting him. Monica's eyes ping ponged back and forth between them.

" _What would you have me say_?" Carol muttered beneath her breath. She propped load bearing licorice at the cracking seam of the walls.

" _Tell her it means I would die for you_ ," he leaned in and muttered the words to her. Their language already made her skin prickle. " _Say it means until we both return to stardust my every breath is yours_."

She had missed the sound and shape of Kree in her mouth. Something about it was rumbling and harsh but like Yon-Rogg it heated her. Monica was leaning so far forward she was in danger of toppling the house herself.

"When's your formal?" Carol asked instead.

* * *

Maria had come back from Christmas shopping to an inexplicably ecstatic Monica and two sullen house guests. Also a gingerbread house that was leaning precariously to one side with a regimented lawn of trees.

Maria and Carol had stayed up past the other two going up to bed. Carol had sat curled into Maria's side with her head on her shoulder. A beer in one hand and her eye on the slowly slumping candy monstrosity.

"Have you given Monica 'the Talk' yet?" Carol asked into her beer. Maria lifted her head from where she had been resting it on Carol's so she could look down at her friend.

"Define 'the Talk'?" She asked warily.

"You know 'when two people love each other-'" Carol trailed off, taking a deep swig of her beer.

"When she was six. Why? What have you and your weird Alien Boyfriend been telling my daughter?"

Carol groaned, "nothing she was just asking about Yon and about the blood - thing. I bungled it."

"Okay, well luckily my daughter isn't going to get a vein-full of alien blood any time soon so you can't have messed her up too badly."

"I just- Yon was there-"

"Ah," the one syllable was so full of understanding Carol wanted to bury herself between the couch cushions.

"I can't. I am not made for saying the things he can just say."

Maria reached up and petted Carol's head as she held her beer curled to her chest.

"Carol Danvers, you have never known how to use your mouth. It always gets you in deep."

"Hey, I am-," she had no defense. "Good at other things."

"Uh-huh? Like interior decorating?" Maria nodded over to the house that looked nothing like the Martha Stewart magazine Maria had left behind.

Carol grabbed a pillow and whacked her friend.

* * *

Yon was already in bed when Carol came upstairs. She had expected to find him meditating. He always waited for her, kneeling, palms up, and his eyes half closed. Tonight the lights were off and she could see his shape beneath the covers. Uneasiness crept over her. She had offended him with her inability to express what it was she felt for him.

She pulled off her Marvin the Martian sweatshirt and dropped it on the floor. She also kicked her jeans off. She watched him carefully for any sign of movement. He was still. Too still. The thrumming stillness of a beast lying in wait. Carol paused. She pressed off her translator. She didn't want any projection of her words creeping through the house, conveniently and shamefully translated to English. She stayed out of reach of the bed, sinking to her knees. Her palms up.

She felt the tremor in the air of Yon registering her position. She felt his immediate consideration. The strategy shifting. They stayed like that for a moment, balanced in the silence.

At last, he sighed and sat up.

"You aren't meditating," he said to her. Carol stayed silent as he turned so his feet were on the floor and his look burned into her. She bit her cheek so she wouldn't smile. "How is it possible that with all the discipline in the world I couldn't even teach you to fake it?"

" _You are a good teacher_ ," she said softly. He paused, the hand that had come up to run through his hair stalled. Her Kree was rusty but he knew it was her speaking it. Not the translation syncing with his implant. His hand swept down to turn his off again. No distractions, only the two of them in the dark of Maria's guest bedroom. Carol opened her eyes and held his gaze. " _I have upset you_."

" _No, never_ ," he said swallowing thickly. Carol shuffled on her knees, two steps forward so when she knelt again she could put her hands on his knees.

" _We said no more lies_ ," she teased, running the flats of her palms up his thighs. He nodded. " _What do you think the punishment should be for lying_?"

He shook his head. His jaw fluttered in the moonlight. Beneath her hands his muscles tensed. She reached for him.

" _Should I bring you close?_ " The tension in his thighs answered her more than words could. He groaned when she moved her hand over the shape of him. He tried to catch her hands, he never let her, always wanting to give and never receive. She changed the grip so she had his hands. He was already growing pliant to her will. She moved them to the bed. " _Don't touch me again_."

He nodded as she returned to him. His breath came in short hisses as she pushed aside the fall of his sleep pants. This was always the moment that was the sweetest, the knife's edge where he shook trying to keep control, keep still and the first warm pressure against her tongue. It was when she felt the most in control, the most powerful. He made a low humming noise as she tilted her chin, lifting higher on her knees to adjust the angle. She felt him widen his knees so she could lean closer. She pressed herself into the gap. Her hand one hand sliding over his tight thigh to brace on the mattress beside him, the other held him.

She took him all the way once and then lifted her head. Her hand mimicking the action over and over. She looked up at him. His eyes were closed and his lip was caught between his teeth.

" _Tell me the truth_." She urged him. He shook his head so she bobbed forward. She moved her tongue in a swirl before dipping her head down again. He groaned. She moved away, keeping close enough the breath of her words moved over him, " _I'll stop_."

" _I Just want you to say it_ ," he admitted, his voice hoarse. His voice as close to begging as she ever heard it. " _Say it once_."

" _Cum and I will think about it,_ " she answered. She was done talking. She wanted to listen to him whimper as she enjoyed the heat and the pressure. How solid he felt. How powerful. How undone by her he was.

" _D'ast, Vers_ ," he swore. She smiled around him, swallowing gently so could he feel the soft constriction of her throat. He only called her Vers when he was on the edge, when he was enjoying himself. When he was consumed by an emotion he could not easily articulate. His hands came to his knees, he didn't touch her but his hands curled and stretched the thin soft fabric of his pants. They felt good against her too, the places that touched her skin sliding almost like silk. She moved faster, she could feel the clenching of his muscles, and heat like blood gathering against her tongue.

" _I want you to say it to everyone_ ," he confessed. His voice broke around pants. He spilled out the truth in a desperate attempt to gain satisfaction. " _I want everyone to know_."

She hummed, her mouth and fist around him, he flinched with pleasure. He whimpered. She loved it. The mighty Yon-Rogg whimpering under her.

When his hands came to her hair she knew he was close, close enough to forget the rules. She let him hold her head in place, lifting against the pressure of his hands as she swallowed. Hot, pulsing, rewarding. He was shaking as she lifted her head. He was curled forward over her, his eyes screwed shut tight but is jaw lax. She lifted away and he blinked open his eyes.

" _My every breath is yours, Yon-Rogg_."


	4. Holiday in the Desert - Part one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Talos/Soren The Mummy AU
> 
> Part one of two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating: M

The deserts of Quairo were unforgiving, a planet once teeming with life and technology that slowly cooked itself down to arid scapes of shifting sand. Beneath the dunes were vaults containing untold treasures. The native inhabitants were overrun with tourists and treasure hunters alike. As well as the parasites that feasted on the underbelly of civilization, mercenaries and dried up soldiers adrift in the sun scorched capital Tundes on the last habitable land mass in the sweltering planet. Only in Tundes was the ozone thick enough the radiation didn't blister, so it was here everyone flocked.

Talos sat on the veranda of a popular night club. He stuck out like a sore thumb inside among the lacquer and chintz but beneath the shade of a protopalm he could sip his drink and watch patrons drift past the door. He had shrugged off his jacket and rolled up his shirt sleeves. The heat still stuck to him even as the sun set, the burning colours sweeter for the dying planet. Moisture clung in the creases of his shirt. Where it bunched at his elbows and tucked into his pants. He undid a few buttons at his collar, fanning himself with a wanted ad he had pulled from a public billboard outside. Already the sun had baked the paper smoke yellow thin and it crunched inbetween his fingers.

It looked nothing like his face, not anymore, he was no longer square jawed with a high forehead and a swoop of dark hair. Now his eyes were blue and his face mapped with crags. His mouth was what a woman might call sensitive but he found he could crook it into a rakish smile. He tore the poster down only because the charges offended his honour.

Grave robbing? Where did they get off? It was archaeology until the Council of City Preservation decided they wanted to keep your spoils. Then it was grave robbing.

It had been a hell of a haul. Once in a lifetime, and it all fit into a silver disc that hung from a chain around his neck. It was the map to the mainframe. The tomb to Quairo's innovation that was buried beneath the desert. The key to every useless scrap of automation they pulled out of the sand. The key to making it all work again, to finally unlocking the secrets that both killed the Tundari and made them great.

He had wanted to celebrate. What he had ended up doing was hiding in an alley by the port waiting for a face he could use. Now he had one, the itch had returned. He walked a silver round over his knuckles. He was restless.

The ice was making his glass sweat. He lifted it to his lips and drank deeply. It was sweet and thick before the burn of the liquor descended. He looked at the drink. He noticed for the first time the sour pickled cherry skipping along the bottom of the glass. As he turned it in the dying light he could see the sugar syrup refracting the glare of the lightbulbs inside.

"What is this shit?" He asked turning to his companion. A small man with a pointed chin and a pointier mustache crouched on his chair. Slip might be good for sliding into tombs but the man was rotten company. Talos would take his face and cut him out of the deal but frankly he didn't want his skeezy memories bobbing around inside his brain. Slip laughed in his chattering way and rocked a little. When he spoke he had a lisp.

"It's the special, it's why the tourists come here."

"It's sugar water with a garnish," he said putting his drink down. Talos wanted more than this. That was when he saw her drifting across the doorframe pretty as a lily. She wore a white dress, pure white. Whiter than anything Talos had seen in the desert. It was cut down her back in a deep vee. He could see the crests of her shoulders and dark freckles making a constellation on her olive skin.

She was the party he had been waiting for. He slammed back his drink and stood up.

"Don't wait up," he said barely turning to look at Slip's glittering dark eyes.

"Where are you going Mr. General?"

Talos rolled his eyes. He had given up on explaining to Slip that General was its own title. Better he forget his name.

"I am going to go greet the tourists," he answered, grabbing his cracked leather jacket. He flipped the silver round once before tucking it in his breast pocket.

"And what do you think you are?" He heard Slip chittering behind him. Talos ignored him. He may not be Tundari but he sure as shit wasn't a tourist. That implied you had a home to go back to.

When he reached the bar she was leaning both arms on it with her hip resting against the stool, her spine making a lovely curve and the froth of her dress spilling over her legs in a way that made Talos want to run a hand from her knee to her waist.

He stood a little ways from her and placed his glass on the bar top with a clink. He knew her eyes would dart to him. He knew they would look away just as fast. She was nervous. He could smell it on her. And he knew by the set of her shoulders that she was alone.

Who knew what brought people to Tundes but whatever it was, pleasure or business, nothing prepared them for the reality.

"Are you going to sing?" He asked as he signaled the barman. He didn't turn to look at her but there was no one else close enough in the crowd that he could be talking to.

"What?" She asked with a small laugh like bells.

"It Sundas Day, the longest night, the Tundari sing to entreat the sun to return to them."

"I think they should stop singing," she said leaning a little towards him and looking up through her lashes. Her eyes were dark purple, they caught the light like glass lanterns. Talos watched a single bead of sweat travel from the small curls at the nape of her neck down over the smooth slope of her shoulders. He laughed moving a little closer.

"This place may be hellish with the sun but it would be worse without it. It gets cold in the desert," he leaned over to whisper in her ear. He held up two fingers and the barman slid over two drinks, amber with a cherry like a ruby in the bottom. He passed her one. He watched her eyes move from his eyes to his mouth then following his throat down the vee of his collar. He smiled as her eyes returned to him.

They were in agreement then, tonight wasn't a night to be alone.

"What's your name?" He asked, tilting his head to her.

"Sola," she answered him. It was a pretty name. Sensual. It suited her.

"Happy Sundas day, Sola," he held his glass up and she clinked hers against his. Talos leaned back and saw Slip was no longer on the balcony.

He smiled at her, let his eyes trace the bow of her mouth and then he nodded his goodbyes and made his way to the balcony.

He knew she would follow. He could feel her gaze on his back and then the movement of her skirts like a current in the air. He was a Skrull, they were naturally empathetic but there was something about Sola. She drew him to her. He could feel her the way a spider was called by the fine vibrations of a fly in silk. He leaned over the rail and sipped his drink. The sun was almost below the horizon for its long sleep had left the sky bleeding blue into pink.

He heard her slippered foot on the tile. Only tourists wore such delicate footwear, trapping sand against their skin or shredding their stockings. She drifted to the railing beside him. He went still as she sipped her drink. He kept his eyes on the horizon. Lamps were beginning to come on. He breathed in slowly, he could smell her clearer out here where the heavy air clung to the immaterial, giving it body. She smelled of incense, sweet and thick, beneath it the smell of salt and blood. He didn't think she looked the type to be on a pilgrimage.

"When do they sing?" She asked turning to lean against the rail. She held her drink against her throat, sighing as the ice cooled her.

"Just before dawn," he answered, "after the night has been darkest."

"I like to be in bed before then," she said with a quirk of her mouth, before she sipped her drink. Talos reached to brush the dark waves away from her shoulder. The very tip of his finger tracing the ridge of her shoulder. All of her was so soft.

"Why come to Tundes if you're not going to take in the sights?"

"I have seen plenty," she answered. She put aside her drink. She caught the opening of his shirt between her index and middle finger, smoothing the fabric button to button. Her eyes devouring the flash of skin she exposed. He didn't know if she was bold or looking for a client. She was so beautiful he thought he would pay for it. He was rich now anyway. Or would be soon once he made it to the mainframe.

He caught her hand and brought the mound of her palm to his mouth. He sucked the swell of it, grazing her with his teeth. Her eyes held his and he knew he had never met a more compelling woman.

"And what was your favourite?" He asked against her skin.

"I liked the Temple of Mount Ambul."

"If you can avoid the monkeys and the pickpockets," Talos nodded. He traced his thumb along the lifeline of her palm and her fingers curled softly around his hand. She was so responsive. He prayed to the old gods she would let him take her to bed.

"I have nothing to steal," she crinkled her nose.

"No money? No jewelry?" He teased. His eyes dipped low. "Some women here keep rubies in their belly button."

She laughed stealing her hand back and running it along her dress from breast to hip bone so the fabric clung to her. No outlines. She made his mouth water.

"I don't have that skill. Where do they get the rubies?"

"Are you a treasure hunter?" He asked arching his eyebrow. She laughed again and shook her head. "I have been trying to find out what brought you here, if you don't sing and you don't hunt treasure."

"I am in a different type of business," she answered. He finished his drink. It was still revolting but the liquor burned how he wanted it to. So she was in that type of trade.

"Where are you staying?" He asked as she mimicked him, finishing his drink. Except she drew the blood red cherry between her lips. She hummed as she crushed it between her teeth.

"The Old Garrison," she answered. Talos knew the place. It was close.

"It's haunted you know," he told her with a grin. She playfully shoved his shoulder.

"Don't say that, I am all alone there," she shivered. The air was getting cold. He shook out his jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders.

"I could come check it."

"For ghosts? I wouldn't want to impose."

"I would consider it my penance for scaring you."

* * *

Her hotel room was dove grey plaster with black furniture. As light and airy as she was. The bed was large covered in white linens. Desire and anticipation hummed through Talos as she locked the door.

She shrugged off his jacket laying it over a chair. She drifted around the room, tucking away small personal effects and turning on lights. Talos felt tipsy, lust was making his blood so thick.

"What do you think?" She asked pulling down the comforter as if she was getting ready for bed. "Any ghosts?"

"It's hard to tell," he answered walking a little farther into the room. "If I stay a little while they might come out."

"Would you like a drink?" She offered smiling at him. He reached her. He caressed her cheek and she closed her eyes, leaning into the palm of his hand.

"I would love one but first," he leaned down and kissed her. She was soft and warm. The tip of her nose when he brushed it was still cold from the night. She opened for him and she tasted of cherries. He stepped back and looked down at her. "I am scared to touch you. It is not easy keeping something so white in Tundes."

She nodded to the small door beside the closet. "The basin is in there."

He let her go and went to the small water closed. The lightbulb popped as he flicked the circuit. It came slowly to life. Talos began to wash his hands and face. He didn't want to look in the mirrror but he couldn't help it. His hands touching a stranger's face drew his eye. In the bedroom, he could hear glasses clinking.

He came out and she was waiting for him. Like a flower blooming from the tile. Two drinks were on the bedside table. Her eyes moved over him. He crossed the room in three long strides and grabbed her by the waist.

"You're very beautiful," he whispered. She looked down blushing, her hands fiddling with his buttons.

"Will you take me to bed, then?" She asked looking up at him hopefully. Talos could not believe his luck. He growled and started walking her backwards. She protested, laughing and begging him to wait as she kicked off her shoes while trying to keep in step.

She lifted her skirt and Talos caught a band of pink holding her stockings up, the silk more luminous because of the deep olive of her thigh. Her fingers reached for it as she stumbled. He paused and knelt in front of her. He reached beneath her skirt and found the edge of her garter. His rough hands caught at the fineness of the fabric but he didn't care. He rolled it down her leg as she dutifully held her skirt in cascading handfuls. She was trembling beneath his grip and he suddenly knew she would be worth every penny for the believability of her performance. He pressed a hot kiss to the inside of her thigh and she flinched and whimpered. One hand came to his hair. Her fingers wove through it for a second before she tugged and held him to her skin.

Talos thought for sure he was in heaven as he worked her other garter down her leg and kissed from one to the other, pausing to breathe hotly at the apex of her thighs and lick the satin of her underclothes. A promise for what was to come as her knees buckled slightly.

She released his hair and took a step back. He followed her staggering to his feet. She grabbed a fistful of his shirt and tugged him towards the bed. She pushed him down and he sat back against the headboard.

She straddled him, her skirts rucked up like drifts of snow. She tugged at her bodice, freeing one arm and then the other. She held it up in front of her and Talos would sell his soul to pull it away. He reached a shaking hand for a glass but she stopped him.

"Wait," she leaned forward and kissed him her hands undoing the last of his buttons as her mouth drew at him and her tongue followed his lip. When she sat back his shirt was open and she reached for a glass. He shrugged off his shirt throwing it to the floor and undid the fastening of his pants as she took a long swallow of the tawny liquor. She leaned forward and kissed the corner of his mouth. She passed him the glass and traced his sternum with her fingertips. They paused for a moment to circle the ring of silver he wore on a chain. He stopped her hand.

"Careful," he warned before draining the glass.

Her hands felt like heaven as they moved lower. Talos thought he might be floating. The room was growing dim.

Sola lowered her top and he saw through foggy vision the outline of her. He shook his head and blinked his eyes trying to see her better. He wanted to lift his hand and touch her but all of him was lead and the world was tilting sideways.

* * *

Talos woke feeling like he had spent the night pinned under a rhino's ass. The light hurt as he tried to roll over. He reached out an unseeing hand and didn't feel Sola beside him. Panic lanced as the ending of the night faded to black. His hand clutched at his chest as he forced himself to sit up. His brain sloshed.

The chain and ring were gone.

"No, no, no," he repeated as he searched in the covers. It was gone. Stolen and he knew who had taken it.

Sola.

She had been too perfect. Too willing. And now the disc was gone. Except. He moaned as he leaned forward off the side of the bed. He reached for his shirt and pulled it up as he slumped back against the headboard. Thick struggling fingers fished through the cotton finding the pocket.

Relief flooded him as the silver round fell into the palm of his hand. He hung his head back and laughed.

Sola may have taken part of the map, but he still had the other half. The centre of the ring that made the disc whole.

Looks like the bitch would have to find him again. If he didn't find her first.


	5. Mentor/Mentor/Mentor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating G

"You look like you want to laugh," Vers pouted through the bars. Yon-Rogg tried to set his face into a firmer line. "I don't think this is funny."

"I assure you, Vers, I don't find it funny either."

She was locked behind a primitive grate system, all iron bars pinioned to concrete walls. If she had her powers escape would have been easy, but she was currently low and without access to the Supremor she couldn't charge herself up. Her Commander had his arms crossed and was watching her through the bars.

"Then tell them to let me out," she gripped the bars and pulled herself up so her chin rested against cold iron.

"I am not going to do that," he answered leaning forward so his face was close to hers.

"Why not?" She sulked.

"I am trying to apply a lesson about our role here."

"Can't you just tell me the lesson?"

"Obviously not."

Vers sighed loudly and dropped from the bars. She walked the three paces to her cot and let herself fall onto it. The springs groaned as her feet ground into the concrete floor.

"Vers," his voice had an annoying thread of patience, as if she was a misbehaving child. Perhaps she was acting like one. "We are not overlords here. We are not gods."

"Did I say we were?" She sat up on her elbows and glared at him.

"You're in here because you lost your temper-"

"Is that a crime now?" She groaned collapsing back onto the creaking cot. Her stomach was sour from too many drinks and a hint of shame she was keeping buried deep in her stomach so it pushed the bile up.

"Getting drunk with the locals, then starting a fight is," he said patiently. She sat up one hand coming to her head.

"They called us colonizers. They said-"

"It doesn't matter," he interrupted her sharply. He sighed, clenching the bridge of his nose. "Our Empire is benevolent. The Supremor knows what a planet needs to thrive before they do. It is not always an easy transition. It is not always something the common person can understand. It is your conviction that failed you, Vers. You allowed them to cause you doubt."

"If they don't want us here, why have we come?" She asked the question that had been burning in her since she heard the drunken spewing of one of the bar patrons.

"Do you always know what you need or do you rely on me to show you?" He asked stepping closer to the bars. His voice low and intimate. She was too drunk to have him be nice to her. She was suddenly grateful for the barrier between them.

"This isn't about-"

"It is the same," he held up his hand patiently. "And now what you need Vers is to suffer for your rashness. I am not helping you. You must make peace with those you have offended."

"How-" she trailed off exasperated.

"That is part of the lesson; look at these people, see what they need. Offer all of yourself in service to them."

"I hate you," she groaned laying back down again.

"No you don't," he teased. She could hear his smile even as she kept her eyes on the rough hewn ceiling of the cell.

* * *

_Seven Years Later_

It was Christmas. Carol had returned to Earth bringing along Talos, Soren and Indes. She had done it under the guise of them needing time to be a normal family but in truth it was because she wanted to surround herself with distractions. A little island of unusual in an ocean of what should feel normal.

She had a beer in one hand and her feet up on the coffee table. Talos was next to her. His feet next to hers in big bear claw slippers. The Skrulls were all bundled up, the weather was cooler than perfectly climate controlled ships but the sunshine and fresh air more than made up for it. Talos was swaying his feet with his head cocked. They were both deep into a case of beer.

"What are you thinking?" Carol asked bumping his shoulder.

"I could make my feet look like this. Do you think it would be more efficient?"

"Then you would have bear feet, " Carol answered. She laughed at her joke putting down her beer.

"I don't get it."

"That animal is called a bear-" Carol started to explain when Soren and Maria joined them. Soren climbed into Talos' lap, shivering a litte and Carol shifted to be closer to the arm where Maria perched. Maria put her hands on Carol's cheeks and she hissed.

"Why are you so cold?" She asked. She ignited her skin so she glowed a little. Soren laughed and slid off Talos to huddle into Carol's side.

"You're stealing my wife with your little light show," Talos complained shifting so there was room for his wife between them.

"It's safe to say Monica likes her gift," Maria said wrapping her arms around Carol and resting her chin on her crown. "Although I don't know how I will explain to the neighbours why there is a small mountain of snow on my front yard."

"Christmas miracle," Carol shrugged. She leaned back so she could see Indes and Monica making a snow man in the snow Carol had brought from an ice planet in Helgentar. It was a lot of effort for something that would be gone by morning, but seeing the two girls playing, knowing Talos and Soren were able to share joy with their daughter, made the effort seem small.

"You should go play with Indes," Soren hinted pressing her forehead to Talos' cheek. "She doesn't want to ask for you-"

Talos did not need more prompting. He stood up putting his beer on the coffee table.

"Time to go freeze," he inclined his head and bid farewell to the women with the mock seriousness of a man going to war.

Soren drifted after him.

"What are you thinking about?" Maria nudged Carol. She stole her half beer as they shuffled so they could both fit on the couch.

Carol hung her head back trying to form into words what it was that was on her mind.

"I am just thinking about a lesson someone tried to teach me. I think I am finally starting to understand."

Maria opened her mouth as if to ask another question when there was the thudding of chopper blades overhead. They both leaned forward to look out the window.

"Nick?" Maria asked.

"Fury," Carol answered getting up to dash outside.

The small chopper landed in the back field. Fury was already out and crossing the yard as the blades still turned.

"Do I want to know where that snow came from?" Fury called as Carol met him. Indes was ducked behind her father as Fury grumbled. Monica threw a snowball at him.

"I ran a parasite scan," Carol assured him as Fury brushed snow from his jacket and looked daggers at Monica, who covered her mouth to stop her laughing.

"Very comforting," he said with a raised brow as he walked to the edge of the snow and gathered a handful. Monica started running before the snow ball tagged her between the shoulders.

"You have good aim for a man with one eye," Carol teased gathering her own snowball.

"You throw that, Danvers," Fury held up a warning finger, "and I will invoice you for all the cat food I've bought this year."

Carol laughed chucking it at Talos instead.

* * *

The snow was already beginning to puddle and squish by midnight.

Carol and Fury were alone in the kitchen. They didn't talk. Just sat on either side of the island sipping scotch and looking at the lights.

"So," Fury said at last breaking the silence. "What aren't you telling me?"

"I don't know what you mean," Carol smiled bringing the glass to her lips.

"The Skrulls, the snow," he looked down at himself, "this festive sweater I am only wearing to extract a favour from you later. I know when a soldier is burying a demon."

Carol ran a hand through her hair and sighed. She wasn't alone she reminded herself again. She didn't have to be alone.

"Demon is good word for it," she nodded. She put her glass down and Fury refilled it. "It was easier when this all came back. When I could just be mad. Now, it's like I am still using what they taught me, I am still alive because they saved me and- and I don't want to be grateful."

"And when you say "they" you mean-?"

Carol drank her whole glass back and reached for a gingerbread man. She snapped off his leg and ate it. She swallowed.

"He's good looking, if you're into aliens," Fury poked at her silence. Carol rolled her eyes.

"I am surprised you had time to notice with the space battle happening."

"I noticed later."

"What do you mean?" She asked around the cookie head between her teeth. Fury looked at her as if weighing his options as he reached for a cookie.

"SHIELD has him."

* * *

The facility was misleadingly bright. All glass walls and windows, but Carol knew it meant you were always watched. Always under someone's eye. The greater the transparency the more thorough the illusion. She had been sick since Fury told her.

She had felt betrayed. That they had kept him and never told her. Snatched his damaged craft as if he were a tadpole in a stream. She knew Fury was remorseful because the red tape had been sliced so quickly to allow for this visit. So quickly she was still numb and without a plan.

She pressed her thumb against the sensor and the light above the door turned to green. She held her breath as she pulled open the six inch steel plated door. It was nothing to her, it would have been nothing to Yon-Rogg. It was not about the bars. It was never about the bars.

He was seated by the window reading, his head bent and the cold winter sun making him look pale. He was in grey, a slight bulk at his ankle where they had strapped a monitor. She breathed through her nose, almost laughing as she looked around at his cell. It was cute SHIELD thought this could contain him.

"I don't think it's funny," he said turning his page.

"It's a little funny," she said coming to sit across the table from him. She turned her head trying to read the spine of his book.

He put it down spinning it so she couldn't spy. He looked up at her, the same patient gold stare. Why had nothing changed? She wanted everything to be different.

"This planet is unprepared for the powers it seeks," he said looking away from her to the window. It was snowing outside. She could see a mountain range in the distance. Isolation all around them.

"They've been questioning you?" She asked fiddling with the fringe on her scarf. It was too warm inside for the way she was dressed but she didn't want to part with any layers. He was looking down again, his thumb fanning the pages of his book slowly. She bit back the desire to say she hadn't known he was here. It didn't need to be said. It wasn't her he waited for.

"They stopped. I won't tell them, Vers. I won't translate Mar-Vell's notes. Her ideas. Her powers- they were dangerous," he looked up at her, his eyes bore an apology she couldn't bear to hear. His words had a salt edge of bitterness. "I know she was your mentor."

"She believed in me, when no one else did," Carol blinked back errant unwelcome tears. Her voice too soft. She hated it. "But she wasn't the only one who cared about me."

He looked at her again with the intensity as if he meant to etch her in his mind.

"I wanted you to know-" she sighed and hung her head back to look at the smooth white ceiling, "that I am beginning to understand."

He nodded slowly, his eyes looking at his thumb once again worrying the corner of his book.

"Anything else?" He hazarded. His voice soft but heavy. Carol swallowed shrugging her shoulders. She shouldn't have come.

"Merry Christmas?"


	6. Carols

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating E
> 
> Okay so what I did for this chapter was having my tumblr followers give me 3 of their most recent or favourite emojis and I made them into a story.  
> I hope you can see the emojis and I apologize if you use a screen reader. I will list them here just in case  
> [wine glass, shocked cate, purple heart]  
> [heart eyes, eyes, smirk]  
> [lol, crying, upside-down smiley]  
> [heart, glitter heart, spouting whale]  
> [umbrella, music notes]

🍷🙀💜

The piped-in Christmas music sounded like it was being played through a sock by a person who'd only heard the song once and was told to wing it. It groaned through the vents and pipes so it felt more like a dream than a radio station. They were floating in orbit in a planet system near her home galaxy. She had stopped the ship immediately when the radio she kept stashed on the console had started to crackle. The inertia had been so sudden she had heard the skittering of claws as Goose lost purchase somewhere in the ship. She heard a thunk she thought might have been Yon. She had even thudded against her harness, but her eyes never left the radio as the light came on and the dial had started to tick.

Talos called it her relic but it was more than that. It was the small piece that reminded her how close home could be. And right now it was catching radio waves beaming from Earth. She knew because Bing Crosby only crooned on Earth, baby. And if this song was playing that meant it was almost Christmas.

Carol was reclined in a chair in the galley, the radio cranked up so high she could hear it from the flight cabin. She had cracked a bottle of wine she had ended up with after a mission on a small backwater and put her feet up on the table. Beer or whisky might have been her poison of choice but at that moment the dark red catching the light felt just like Christmas. She moved her feet in time with the song and hummed.

She thought she heard banging deep in the ship. It was probably Yon she thought again. Her voice was a little squeaky as she kept in smooth rhythm with the words. She couldn't sing them. All she wanted was to be home.

She always forgot until it was too late, that the seasons on Earth would be changing. That it wouldn't all wait for her. She sniffed back stinging tears. The alcohol was hitting her hard.

She wanted Goose. She stood up quickly. She drained her glass and took the bottle. She walked with quiet steps through the ship, her stretched-out Rolling Stone's tour shirt and bare feet made her feel like she was creeping down the hallway on Christmas eve. Hoping to catch Santa.

In this case, she was hoping to catch a sleeping flerken. She looked in each room hoping to find a little flash of orange. Goose was in Carol's quarters, belly up and tail swishing as she rolled peacefully in Carol's bed.

Moving quickly was the key to Flerken-napping. Carol put down her bottle of wine as quietly as she could and pounced on the bed. Goose barely got out a meow before Carol had her in her arms. The Flerken patiently pushed against Carol's chin with her paw as she made friendly noises. Goose only liked affection under very specific conditions and every time Carol scooped her up she was rolling the dice on whether she would get to keep all her limbs. Obviously, Goose was feeling generous as she hadn't immediately kicked away from Carol and slunk off.

Carol swayed with the flerken, singing softly along with Ella Fitzgerald.

"Do you remember the PEGASUS Christmas party?" She asked the fuzzball. She could have sworn Goose rolled her eyes back as Carol dipped her a little. "Makes sense now that Mar-Vell thought we were crazy."

It was a good memory, paper cups of whisky that tasted a little of crayons. A record playing, maybe Perry Como, she remembered this song was the one he sang. Mar-Vell had wanted to know what each thing was. She wished her mentor had told them, had let them comfort her and teach her more. Let them love her completely before it ended.

Maybe that wasn't a very US Navy attitude but it had felt like the three of them against the world. How things would have changed if Carol had known it had been a galaxy at stake?

"Do you miss her?" Carol asked Goose softly. Tucking her beneath her chin as the strings faded and another song started to echo.

There was banging again. She sighed and put the flerken down. Goose quickly escaped to a high shelf.

Yon needed to shut the hell up. Carol grabbed her bottle and started to wind her way down to the brig.

😍👀😏

"Is there a reason you are banging on the walls?" She asked as she opened the pressurized door. The wave of heat and the smell of faded shaving oil and laundry detergent hit her. The brig had been her laundry room that, for the sake of convenience, also held the standard-issue holding cell. For space madness. Or probably more accurately artillery, but she was a one-woman artillery.

Steam, she realized, was filling the air. And Yon was stripped to the waist, climbing the shelves, trying to use his shirt to stop up one of the many hissing pipes.

"This ship is poorly maintained," he raised his voice over the sound of escaping pressure and the decidedly louder echo of Christmas music. He pointed at the vent that connected the flight cabin and the brig, "and that racket violates the Galactic Concord."

Carol was barely listening as water droplets condensed on his skin and slid over his torso. She shook her head. There was a problem. Steam was water. Water was precious.

"When did this happen?" Carol demanded as she walked to the wall panel. It was stuck and she tucked her wine under her arm as she tried to pry it free. Above there was an echo of sleigh bells.

"Don't do that," Yon protested. "It's self-sealed for a reason."

Carol took a fortifying slug of wine, "the main valves are in there, you got a better plan."

"Don't throw a ship out of drive and then coast through free space without proper pressure balancing?" Yon raised his eyebrows and tilted his chin.

The panel wouldn't budge and the room was getting hotter. Through the vents, Elvis was singing about snow. There was a shuddering in the pipes and another ring just outside the door of Yon's cell blew. Steam poured out and made water droplets glitter along the ceiling.

Yon sighed as he looked up and hot water dripped down on him. It hit Carol like boiling rain.

"Shit, shit, shit" she cursed. She stripped off her shirt without thinking and launched herself towards the bars of his cell. Yon's eyes widened and he stepped back. The single harsh light panel cast his figure in hard shadows. Carol really didn't need to notice how shirtless he was as she climbed the bars of his cell in her bra and basics, the shirt wadded up in her fist. She turned her head from the burst of steam and could see Yon looking up at her as the water soaked her.

She packed the shirt around the pipe blindly. The hissing stopped as the water began to soak through the cotton.

She pushed her damp curls away from her forehead, "thank you, Mick Jagger."

She dropped back off the bars her feet sliding in the water. She flailed to catch herself, her hands finding Yon's forearm as he had dashed to the bars when he saw her start to slip.

Carol clung to him for a moment. Their eyes locked together and she wished a hole would open up and suck one of them out of the ship.

"Who's Mick Jagger?" Yon growled at her as his hand tightened on her elbow.

😂😭🙃

"My Earth boyfriend," Carol shrugged letting him go, disturbingly aware that the hand that gripped her elbow was pressing into her bare ribs.

"Your what?" He snapped following her to the very edge of the cell.

"You know, my mate. My one and only. I am his Honky Tonk woman, I make him feel-" Carol shifted her hips as she walked.

"His what?" Yon spit out. Carol rolled her eyes. It wasn't fun when someone didn't get the joke.

"Nevermind," she sighed returning to the panel. Her wine had spilled. A puddle of red was soaking the phenolic tiles. She cursed as she had to step around it and it puddled between her toes. She was too sober to be dealing with this problem.

She started to hammer on the handle, the bangs working their way between the string section of the Christmas carol playing.

"I really wouldn't, Vers," Yon-Rogg warned. That was when she lost her temper.

"My name," she punctuated each word with a slamming of the heel of her hand into the panel door. Sweat and steam dripped all over her mostly naked body. "Is not. Vers."

As she struck it one more time the lock mechanism broke. She had a moment of celebration before the door swung open. The panel glowed with switches and valves. It twinkled for a moment before there was a heavy electric buzz and the panel shorted. The moisture in the air frying the innards and the lights blinked out.

She heard the thud of Yon's cell door unlocking as her stomach felt like it was falling and Carol realized she was floating upwards.

She had fried the artificial gravity.

"Why is the gravity control here?" She lamented as the cell door banged open and she tried to stay steady in front of the panel. At least the water valves were mechanical.

"Because you bought then failed to maintain a Ravager's heap," Yon said as he grabbed the cell's top lintel bars and pushed himself from the cell. Trust him to be able to move gracefully in the dark with no gravity. The wine and water were forming spheres and lifting from the floor.

"What was I supposed to do?" She asked angrily cranking valves. Hoping something would make the heat and the steam stop. "Roll up to a Hala lot and ask to lease their finest Cruiser?"

"We could have taken my ship," he observed calmly as he came up behind her.

"Yeah, so easy for them to track," she grit through her teeth, pulling wires from the panel and welding them together to try and bypass the fried breakers. She needed gravity and she needed light. She barely looked over her shoulder, hissing through her teeth. "Go back to your cell."

"No," he shook his head. "Let me help."

"I have it," she muttered.

She regretted taking Yon-Rogg prisoner now after she had found him posted on a Kree held planet. She hadn't thought. When their eyes locked she had blasted him and then dragged him back to the ship. It was only once she shorted the tracker in his suit and broke the atmosphere that she realized she didn't have a plan. He reached over her, pointing to one of the poorly labelled breakers, his slick torso pressed against her.

"Your lights will be clustered away from the life systems. This breaker is designed to overload and blow first so-"

"So we don't suffocate," she grumbled her interruption. It was hard enough doing this while trying to cling to the door so she didn't float away. Yon's hand gripped the door just above hers. She was about to turn her head to tell him to shove off when his other arm wrapped firmly around her waist, holding her to him. He tilted them back and she made a small sound. Half surprise half excitement. She hated the thrill that went up her spine at his nearness. At the way their skin slid over each other. He braced his feet low on the wall so he was slightly reclined, her backside firmly against his hips. He was anchoring them, she realized through a desire fogged brain, so she could work.

She swallowed as she hesitantly released the door and leaned into the panel. She could feel the tremor in his muscles as he pinned her the right way up. She tried to work fast.

❤💖🐳

She managed to trigger the emergency generator and the room was lit by low light again. It was almost romantic, the drifting beads of water and wine, red and silver glittering in the low light, above them the slow warped sounds of symphony strings.

"Thanks," she muttered, twisting so she could see him. His head was back and his eyes were closed. His eyetooth dug hard into his lip. She could feel the hard rise and fall of his breath, a rhythm so deep it was almost as if he was meditating. She twisted in his arms so she was laying flat along him, her bare legs felt the scratch of his pants. She had taken his suit and left him some old sweats from Earth. Their torsos were bare. He felt so good against her, rough and smooth at the same time.

She wrapped one arm around his shoulders so she wouldn't float away from him. Her face so close to his she could count his long eyelashes.

"Is this your way of telling me you are done with the panel? Because we are still floating," he kept his eyes closed and he spoke softly. His voice rumbled against her chest and she wondered if she was drunker than she thought because the moment felt perfect. A constellation of droplets hanging in the air, closer than stars and the slow rise as fall of Yon-Rogg's breath rocking her.

"I missed you," she said without meaning to.

"Vers," he warned. The old name should make her angry but at that moment it made her homesick. She wanted to swallow the confusing feeling so she opened her eyes and closed the distance between them.

She didn't know how to let herself kiss him. He was too impenetrable, too constant. She kissed his cheek, and then his jaw. His chin. She felt his arm tense around her and he started to pull them upright. She kissed him more passionately, small begging kisses along his jaw and his cheek. When they were all the way upright she found herself awkwardly high against his chest, her hips at his navel.

His eyes were open and looking up at her now. His arm still gripped her.

"Do you feel okay?" He asked slowly trying to sort out her changing attitudes. "Do you feel yourself?"

She caught her lip and nodded slowly, her hands balancing on his shoulders. She felt better than herself. She felt closer to whole than she had in years.

His arm pivoted so he could reach for her shoulder, pulling her lower and then holding the back of her neck. It was a gentle, firm caress that made her feel cradled against their slowly drifting bodies. He reached up so he could kiss her, she wrapped her legs around his hips so she could curl into him. She could hear bells as his mouth urged her open and his tongue traced the upward slant of her lip. Even in this, he was strong and thorough. He moved slow and heavy so they rocked like a pendulum towards the wall.

He touched his tongue to hers then pulled away. She made a soft protesting sound as he held her firmly by her hair and made her look at him. She just wanted to return to being kissed, to the slow warm static that spread from the base of her spine to the arches of her feet and the roots of her hair.

"You've been drinking," he said firmly. His eyes soft but narrowed. It was a statement of fact. She nodded feeling herself pout. She knew she must look newly kissed. She could feel the heat and pressure like a ghost against her mouth. She knew she was giving him a pleading look but she didn't want him to stop.

"Do you have all your faculties?" He asked seriously.

"I spilled most of it," she shrugged looking around at the red drifting dots. Yon turned his head as if noticing them for the first time. He released the door and pulled her even closer to him. She barely had a moment to draw breath as he seemed to inhale all of her. His lips sealed against hers and he caressed her tongue. She was shaking. It was too much and yet not enough. When she broke free of his mouth she drew in air and repeated his name like a prayer. She needed what was next. She needed more. He let go of her so she drifted upwards, she looked down at him in confusion her hair a golden halo around her head. His hands slipped below the waist of her basics and he pulled them down her legs as her back bumped softly against the curved, wet ceiling, knocking loose more glittering drops. She stretched out along the ceiling, feeling the tug and pull as Yon tried to stay close as he drifted beneath her. He pressed a kiss to her navel, pushing his tongue in for a brief second before pulling himself lower, climbing her body as if it was a tower. She bent her elbows tenting her fingers against the hot slick ceiling, wishing for weight and pressure.

She made a sobbing sound when his mouth parted her, his chin and jaw brushing her thighs for a moment before his tongue licked her. She flinched and her body bobbed against the ceiling. She laughed it was so ridiculous. And wonderful. The crooning building piano in the vents seemed to echo something building in her, something just beyond her reach as Yon tried to hold her steady, tried to build pressure in a glittering weightless world.

When she came it was a shock of sensation. Lightning rather than a wave. Her nerves crying for pressure even as he gave them everything they needed, tumblers in a lock falling into place with delicate skillful movements.

🌂 🎶

The sensation starting suddenly seemed to have no end as her hands reached to tangle in his hair and her body curved around him, pulling more raindrops from the ceiling. She felt shock after white-hot shock of pleasure as he was relentless. At last, she pulled him away and he smiled at her with glassy sated eyes from between her thighs. She let go of him and covered her mouth as she laughed with the joy of it. She could not picture her own look at that moment. Flushed, sweating and suspended in the air.

He pressed his palm into the ceiling and pushed so he floated downward. He grabbed her ankle so she was pulled with him, for a moment they must have made a twisting arch in the air before his feet met the ground.

"Once the gravity returns, you have to turn off whatever is making this grating noise," he said as he reeled her in closer to the floor.

"I never realized you could be such a bah humbug," she teased as he caught her waist and she reached for his shoulders.

"Is that like a Mick Jagger?"

"Almost exactly," she said rolling her eyes. Apparently, exploring Earth's discography would be part of Yon-Rogg's imprisonment.


	7. Holiday in the Desert - Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating: T+
> 
> If you read the Wraith you will recognize somethings in this chapter. In classic Egotistical fashion I am writing an AU of one of my own fics lol.
> 
> 💙💚❤💜DH

His head fell back and thunked against the headboard, Soren went very still, his one hand still held the glass loosely. She tested his awareness by lifting it from his grip. He didn't flinch. As he had been going under he had blinked trying to keep his eyes on her. Soren had been momentarily transfixed watching him. She still straddled his lap, skirts pushed up around them. The face she had chosen, the beautiful body, the dress, all had made her feel like a goddess of love.

She would never admit that to her companions. They had teased her enough for the plan in the first place but it had worked. Even if she had not meant to let it slip away like this. She pulled the straps back over her shoulders, she would change in a moment but she felt exposed being this close to him.

She hadn't planned on removing any of her clothes. He was supposed to come to the room. She would give him a drink. She would rob him and then return to the hideout. Instead, he had touched her gently and like snow in the desert her guard had dissolved. She didn't know why but it was as if between their skin bridges of lightning formed. Or chemical bonds. The movement of his hand on her cheek had been all encompassing and trying to lift herself above the wave of desire that had washed over her had been almost impossible.

She had never been kissed by a man before, had never been drawn to one in the way he called to her with his gaze. She had kissed women while wearing a man's face, had played lover that way. This was different. Maybe because she felt more kinship to Sola, she understood her more recent thoughts, the landscape of her body not completely alien to her.

Or maybe it was just this man. There was something inside him that made him different. That made her hungry. She had let him kiss her again, had kissed him back. Caught up in exploring a new sensation. It wasn't until she had seen the disc again that she was able to break above the low currents that pulled her deeper under. She had let him drink then. It was not the time to be frivolous. Later when all this was done she could find a male lover and explore this new facet.

If she was inclined.

If she was alive.

She slid the chain over his head and put it around her neck. It was a shame she thought, he had shown promise.

She untangled their limbs and crouched on the floor, pushing aside his shirt and her stockings. From beneath the bed she pulled a bag, everything was as she left it. It was hard to hide being a scavenger in Tundes. There was a hungry look to everything you owned that gave it away. Maybe that was why she liked the white dress so much. When she wore it she could be anyone, she was cloaked in a different type of hunger.

She stood up to pull on her thick canvas trousers and she glanced at the bed again. He was there, his chest rising and falling gently. On a whim she reached beneath her skirts and pulled down the satin soft white underthings she had worn with the dress. Like he had said white things didn't keep in Tundes. Nor did delicate things. She balled them up in her fist and before she could rethink the wisdom of it and she stuffed them into his pocket.

She doubted he would forget the woman who stole his fortune from him but she wouldn't let him forget he'd wanted it.

She got dressed quickly. She walked to the window and threw the dress, stockings and shoes out onto the sun baked tiles of the roof below. Let another scavenger find it.

She swept the room for evidence she had been there and went to the door. She wondered if he would wake before the owners of the room returned from their trip up to the Temple of Mount Ambul. She paused to look at him one more time before she slipped out of the room into the warm lit hallway. The threadbare carpet softened her steps as she crept away, the key to a fortune around her neck.

* * *

It was dark when she emerged from the hotel, the streets were busy. After all it was Sundas day and everyone would revel in the long cool night. A little bit of relief from the glaring sun. She walked down the street, her palms itched as they always did after a heist. She could feel the disc still warm from him against her skin. It was the most valuable thing in the entire city. Perhaps even the entire planet.

Down the road she could see a tire glinting, the only sign someone was in the alley. Soren reached into her bag and pulled out a small laser beam. She flashed it twice, hitting the undulating plaster of the building.

A hand reached out and held their index finger and thumb in the shape of a crescent. Soren began to jog towards the mouth of the alley.

Tank was leaning forward on the handlebars of a sandbike, her feet kicked up into the stirrups and her face hidden by a helmet. As Soren slipped into the alley she flipped up the visor.

"You're even prettier like this," she teased as Soren dropped her bag behind Tank and squeezed onto the back of the bike. "White's not your colour, Sor, gets dirty too easy."

"Shut up," Soren stuck out her tongue and wrapped her arms around Tank's waist. The bike rumbled to life beneath them and Tank walked them to the edge of the alley.

The hideout was not far, the desert was too unforgiving, it was better to hide in the city. Anything could go wrong in the desert. And when it did death came hard.

They were out near the shipyards, Soren liked it there, the different crafts drifting fat and lazy overhead or squatting in the dunes. There was always a constant flow of people so she could make new contacts.

As they zipped through the alleys and streets their bodies leaned in unison. The old engine made it too hard to talk as it thrummed in her ears. It was for the best. Soren didn't want to talk, she was half excitement half shame as she tried to convince herself the heist had happened, that she had been successful. That it had all been real.

They had been closing in on the dig site for months, narrowing down the possibilities. She had become aware of another party only a matter of days before she was set to make the move to open the tomb. She had tried to work faster, but it was work that could not be rushed.

That morning the last rune had been translated and the tomb door opened for them. The joy that she felt as the door creaked open was impossibly intense. As if her guts had all been turned inside out. When they had slowly entered the main room from the winding sand stone halls they found it was empty, except for a brilliant shaft of light coming from the ceiling, where a hole had been cored. The rage that had gripped her had been intense. There were rules. There was honour and they had flouted them and scooped her.

That was when they had hatched the plan to find the large man and the small man. Soren had been tracking the little one. It didn't matter which one she seduced with her new face as long as they recovered the data.

She had never seen his partner until that night, but she had glimpsed the data disc on a chain around his neck. She had felt the invincibility rolling off him, a man who had his fortune set. That had been part of the reason she had wanted to eat him alive. The swagger. Once they were alone he had been different.

She shook her head again and tightened her arms around Tank's waist. She had to stop thinking of him. Tank hunkered low and Soren curled herself down around her as the bike slowed down and they ducked into a low entrance covered by an oily tarp. The ground sloped and they were heading underground.

The Ulohmu post on Quairo was small and cramped. It was made of many tiny rooms connected together. Like a rodent's warren. The largest room was stuffed to the ceiling with the massive command console. When Soren and Tank returned they found Kora exactly how they had left her, hunched in front of the screens, cycling through data.

"Honey, we're home," Tank called out in a sing song voice as she pulled off her helmet. Kora held up a rude gesture over her shoulder. Tank ran her hands over her bright green head. It was sweaty beneath the helmet but it behooved a Skrull to stay covered. They were hated even by people who did not know why they hated them.

Soren unlooped the chain from her neck and wrapped her arms around Kora's shoulders. The glow from the screen painted her citron flesh blue. Soren kissed her temple as she held the data disc out in front of her.

"Don't be grumpy, Kora," she soothed as the woman pushed up her thick glasses and reached a hand out to take the disc.

"You have it," she whispered in awe as she cradled it in her two small hands like a tadpole.

"Of course, did you ever doubt me?"

"Yes. Your plan was ridiculous," Kora said matter of factly her focus turning back to the console. Soren sighed as she released her. Same old Kora. "It will take hours to analyze this. You should change back in case Indes calls."

Soren nodded. She wasn't ready to release Sola yet. She still drew comfort from her and if they needed to go out again they would lose time trying to find someone else to help them.

"I will sleep, then," she said softly moving toward her bedroom. She knew Tank followed her at a distance.

Her room was darker than the main console room, there the glow of tech kept the chamber lit. Soren had only an old halolantern that emitted a soft white-purple glow. The door slid closed behind Tank and she leaned on it. Soren turned on the lantern and started to strip away her belts and pouches.

"I hope you don't change yet," Tank said softly. "Kora's just being a purist."

Soren nodded as she started to kick off her boots. Tank wrapped her arms around Soren's waist and rested her head on her shoulder. Soren was a little taller but not by much.

"Is it alright that I still look like this?" Tank asked softly into her shoulder.

"Of course," Soren smoothed Sola's hands over Tank's green ones. Tank hummed.

"She is so soft, Soren. What's it like to be so delicate?"

Soren turned in Tank's arms and wrapped her slim arms around her neck so their bodies molded together. She kissed her. Tank's arms tightened around her waist. Normally they only played this game when they were both in disguise. It added a layer of detachment. It meant they could stay friends even when they weren't lovers. On occasion, Tank had sought out others. When they were younger it had made Soren sick with jealousy but as they grew older it became more natural to ebb and flow together. The team was what mattered.

Tank started to walk her slowly to the bed, their mouths moving together in a familiar rhythm, except other memories surged in Soren. Tank's hands were reaching for the fastening of Soren's pants.

_Not tonight was all,_ Soren thought. She stilled Tank's hands and stepped away from her shaking her head.

"I can't. Not tonight, love," she said sinking onto the bed. Tank blinked as concern took over her features.

"Are you alright?" Tank knelt in front of her trying to read Soren's expression. Soren nodded, worrying her lip. "Did that bastard do something?"

"No, no. I just gave him Jarru root tincture. I had to drink a little myself to get him to trust me. You know it can make me nauseous."

Tank nodded. She raised up enough she could kiss Soren's forehead.

"Can I get you anything?"

Soren shook her head, "just sleep here."

Tank nodded. She started unlacing her boots and shrugging out of her heavy hide jacket. Soren scooched over on the narrow bed so Tank could climb in beside her. She wrapped her arm around her waist so the were tucked around each other.

"Do you think this will change anything?" Tank asked as she reached out to dim the halolantern until it was only barely buzzing purple.

"I don't know," Soren answered nuzzling closer to her. She and Tank had been on the run their whole lives. Travelling with the Ulohmu, trying to end a genocide that the other Empire's had turned their back on. Tank rolled in her arms so they were facing each other. Soren loved her so much; always irreverent, impossible to beat down, passionate. Everything Soren feared she was not. She had pretended to be Tank when she had seduced him, until he had kissed her and she had become Soren again, unsure how to receive desire but so eager for it.

Tank kissed the corner of her mouth and then her cheek. Soren closed her eyes and felt Tank's lips brush the thin sensitive skin of her eyelids. There was pressure on her shoulder and Soren let herself be rolled onto her back. She kept her eyes closed.

"Is this alright?" Tank asked softly as her hands found the hem of Soren's shirt and she felt her palms sliding up over her stomach and down her sides again. Rough hard-working hands. Soren hummed her agreement as she let her mind drift back to the hotel room. Tank kissed across her collar bones as she fit their hips together. She was so narrow and light. Different but the same. "Tell me why we are here again."

Soren swallowed, finding her breath between the small pinpricks of sensation that were Tank's lips and fingertips. She wrapped her arms around Tank and rolled them back again. She tangled their legs together so Tank was grappled. She heard echo in her chest Tank's muffled laughter and grumbling.

"The People of Quairo had the most refined mecha of all civilization. Their designs are what all powered armour dreams of being. It allowed them to trespass and build places on their planet that no body was made to go. In a way it led to their collapse. And with them, all their secrets. Before they went extinct they buried all their knowledge in the sand. In a place called the Mainframe. If the Ulohmu can bring that tech to the Skrull colonies we can turn the tide of the war. We can make the other Empires see us."

Tank struggled free of the hold and relaxed her head down again on Soren's chest.

"Sounds impossible," she teased.

"That's why Indes sent us," Soren said stroking Tank's temple before following the trail around her ear. "We can do the impossible."


	8. Holiday in the Desert - Part 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating T  
> Having a bit of writer's block due to holiday fatigue, so I am being self indulgent and writing about my favourite couple. Even though this is turning into a weird multichapter fic inside a one shot collection...
> 
> Also this is messy so I may re write it in the morning.  
> Oh well. Good thing it is free on the internet 😛  
> 💚❤💜💙DH

When Soren woke up Tank was gone. It was not uncommon. Tank was restless. She was a woman of action and rarely slept through the night. Soren was a woman of ideas. It was why their styles complemented each other and why Indes trusted them with a smaller crew out in the wild.

That was why it had been unusual for Soren to be the infiltrator last night but what they had taken from her was not supplies or basic necessities. It was personal and she would be the one to get it back.

She sat up and held her head between her palms. Tank made her practice taking larger and larger draughts of Jarru tincture. It was good to have a tolerance. And yet it always left Soren's head buzzing. She felt like she had spent the night buried in sand. She wanted to lie down again but she resisted forcing her sluggish limbs to hold her weight.

She wouldn't think of him and if the drug had made him sick. She wouldn't be weak and regretful. He had robbed her. He had no honour. The expression in his eyes when he called her beautiful was meaningless because he could not see her true face. He would have been revolted knowing he had been making love to one of her kind.

She did not even make love with her own face. It was always in disguise, always a ruse. A way to keep above shifting sands of pride and shame. She could not allow her people to die, to pass into the forgotten anymore than she could accept the love for her true likeness that Indes preached. They were separate, binary stars that pulled in their orbit Soren's heart so the closer she was to one the farther she was from the other.

She pulled her boots on to stop the cold floor from seeping into Sola's small delicate feet. Tank had called her soft, the softness fascinated Soren. She was wiry and angular. She was not like Sola at all. Her ribs jutted out and her stomach sank when she lay on her back, from years of never having enough food. She was built for survival and survival was not beauitful. She turned Sola's palms up and looked at the smooth olive skin. Soren's hands were crossed with hatch lines of scar tissue, from scraping wires and gouging tools. He would not have kissed her palms as he kissed Solas.

He was a thief, he had no honour and he liked beautiful things she repeated to herself like a mantra.

Soren shuffled from her room and leaned for a moment watching the console lights play over Kora.

"Have you moved at all?"

Kora didn't even turn to look at her. "I don't need to move, it's all right in front of me."

"When was the last time you were outside?"

"This planet is not made for me," she answered, her voice groggy and dry. Soren moved to the small kitchen and poured her a cup of water.

"It's not made for anyone, Kora."

"If you have water keep it away from me," Kora called out not turning. She ran a loving hand over the console. Soren sighed and put the cup down. Kora was in a mood.

She walked behind her and curled hesitant hands on the back of her chair. It was wrong to touch her, to move her, but the desire to help clawed at Soren's insides.

"Can I help, Kora? Please?"

"The console does the work. Go away," Kora waved her away.

"Let me roll you to the roof," Soren offered. "It's stuffy in here."

"Open a vent if you want to help," Kora snapped. She shifted uncomfortably in her chair. Soren bit her tongue. She didn't know better than Kora, she told herself. Kora would ask for help if she needed it.

Soren felt responsible. It had been her mission when Kora had been hurt. It been her descision to wait until they reached Reema before they treated her. Kora had been unconscious and had woken without the use of her legs. All Soren's power and knowledge had been useless to her. It had made her doubt her ability to lead. It had made Kora turn to Indes more and more, even as the distance between them and the rest of the Ulohmu grew.

Soren nodded and went to the panel. She had patched in an override so that she could control the air balance. She keyed in the code and vented the air upwards, the heat rushing past her as new air cycled in. It felt like the building inhaling.

The console beeped and Soren froze.

"Is it done? Do you have the Mainframe location?"

Kora laughed. She sounded exhausted and defeated. It wasn't good then.

"Did you check his pockets?" She asked as Soren crossed the room in long strides.

"What do you mean?" Soren leaned over her head to see the screen better. Kora reached up with a thin hand and shoved her to the side so she was no longer hovering over her chair. Soren resettled herself murmuring an apology. She forgot sometimes that Kora's space was sacred to her. Boundaries invisible yet inviolable.

"I mean," Kora continued pushing up her glasses, "this is half the disc."

"That was all he had," Soren protested. Had she screwed up again?

"Are you sure?"

She wasn't. She cursed under her breath. She grabbed her jacket. The sandbike was gone, Tank was out.

"Where are you going?" Kora demanded turning in her chair.

"I don't know," Soren answered running to her room for her tool belt.

"When will you be back?"

"I don't know," Soren repeated. She grabbed the override and called for the service elevator. It arrived groaning to their floor. Only she could call it, she had hacked the authorization protocol and nothing the building above did could fix it.

The doors closed slowly as she banged her head against the wall. How would she even find him?

* * *

Tundes was a big place but no one could hide for forever. Especially not from Talos. He was a finder. It was what he was good at. He saw what others would not.

Except for her, she had blindsided him. He was still kicking himself as he wandered through the streets near the Old Garrison. He needed a plan. It wasn't just his fortune he had lost. Slip would expect his cut and their backers had sunk money into them. They weren't people Talos wanted to owe a debt to. He stopped near a trough, the water glistened. It was meant for beasts to drink from but it would do in a pinch. He couldn't go back to his rooms, they may be waiting for him there. He ducked his head and splashed water onto his face. He supposed he should be grateful she had only used Jarru tincture. She could have killed him.

The minx had even drunk first. He wiped the sour water from around his mouth and nose. He hated her, but he had to admire her style.

There was only one answer to who could have known he had entered the tomb and that was the group who were trying to crack the front door. They must have done it. He could hardly believe it. He had taken one look at the code and changed plans. He thought no one could crack that, but it seemed he was wrong. Talos rubbed his eyes and tried to envision the man from the other group.

Tall, blue eyes. Annoyingly handsome. He had remembered thinking that, even though he had only seen him from a distance.

The thought, unbidden and nauseating, descended that perhaps she was that man's lover. Had they laughed at him? Deluded grey-haired scavenger thought the pretty young thing would go to bed with him.

Talos didn't look at his reflection in the water. He shook his hands into it to obscure the surface with ripples. He had only one clue, the Jarru root. He knew only one place in Tundes where one could come by it easily. He would go there first.

The underground market of Tundes was sprawling and very much above ground. It was on the sun baked rooves of the city. It spread across the entirety of Tundes, certain swells more populated than others and only visible from the ground where rotten planks stretched between buildings. Talos wove through the shaded streets looking above him to see signs of life.

He saw a flutter of red. Someone was scaling the building across the street. He crossed to the other side, dodging around the carts that moved slowly down the wide sand clogged road. He tilted his head to scope out the wide sandstone building. He suddenly felt too old. He stretched his neck and back, quick tilts before setting his back foot and pushing forward towards the building. He caught a low sill and hauled himself upwards. Judging by the worn section of stone this was a common foothold. He sympathized with whoever lived on the other side of the window. He balanced on the edge of the sill and lined up his next hold. He jumped for it gaining minor ground upward. He clung there for a second, gathering himself for the next jump when there was a whistle above him.

He looked up, a slim grey face with wide green eyes was looking down at him.

"Hey, old man," they called down.

"What?" Talos called up, now was not the time.

The kid threw down a rope. It slapped against the wall dully. Talos eyed it warily.

"How much?" He called up.

"Not much," the kid shrugged. Talos weighed his options before sighing and grabbing hold of the rope. He looked up at the kid who ducked out of view and the rope wobbled as he braced it. Talos exhaled slowly as he moved his weight to the rope. It shuddered for a moment but it held. He scaled the side of the building with relative ease. He hauled himself over the edge and rolled into the underground market.

The kid appeared looming over him and reached his hand down. Talos groaned as he sat up, knocking away the kid's hand.

"How much?" Talos repeated.

"You buy something," the kid nodded his head over to a stall. Talos grumbled as he dusted himself off. The roof was burning hot. He was happy to duck beneath the faded awning and look at the rug where items were laid out.

It was all garabage. No wonder the kid was having to barter people to buy from him. Talos scanned the piles. Something gleamed there.

"How much for that?" He pointed at a black pit on a string.

"Four tupas," the kid answered, lifting it. Talos sighed. It was a rip off but at least it was an afforable one. He reached his hand into his pocket and felt something beneath his fingers. He began to pull it out, when he recognized the lace edge. He shoved them back into his pocket, trying not to grin. He checked his other pocket and found the coins he was looking for. He gave the kid the change and the pit was thrown unceremoniously to him.

"Thanks, old man" his eyes glittered as Talos left the tent. The kid had a good racket.

He wandered among the stalls looking for familiar faces even if they wouldn't recognize him. His fingers kept drifting to the silk underthings in his pocket. He hated her, but there was something in the gesture that made his chest thrum. He forced himself to focus. He hoped he could find a dealer close by and that they had a good memory for pretty faces.

He saw one shop he knew, a bent old woman shifted bricks of dried herbs. Not Jarru root but edible grasses harvested from desert oasis farms where plants were grown. Illegal goods only because they threatened importers' business if the Tundari began to remember their old ways of survival.

"Hey, Minha" he said softly crouching beneath her awning. "I am looking for some root dealers."

The woman was shriveled like a raisin but her eyes were sharp, deepset and glittering in an umber face. She looked at him closely.

"Its bad for your health, daja," she said petting his cheek. "Buy some food instead."

Talos was running out of money, he dug in his pocket finding the black pit.

"What if I trade you?" He dangled the gleaming stone in front of her. The woman's eyes watched it sway. The fortune that could be made if one could grow a tree.

"Four rooves towards the temple," she said in a low voice. "Look for the Trill."

Talos gave her the pit, folding it gently into her hands. A Trill would be hard to miss as they were two men wide and at least a head taller.

Talos found the bridges easily, following the flow of the meager crowd, and with some careful balancing landed on the fourth roof without plummeting to his death.

In the shimmering distance he could see the ivory white temple carved into the bleached stone of the mountain.

He scanned the tents and awnings until he spotted the Trill. He started towards him when she crossed his path. Talos froze.

She wore a leather jacket like a scavenger, her head shrouded by a scarf but he recognized the point of ears pressing against the soft linen, completely at odds with her other clothes. The skin where he could see it was green. He could not breathe.

How long had it been since he had seen one of his own kind?

Too long. He started towards her. He had no plan he only knew he wanted to talk to her. He did not know if she could sense him or if it was merely their nature, but she kept her head bowed and weaved through the crowd.

She had a parcel beneath her arm and was moving towards the parapet. He had to catch up to her. He was focussed, following just behind her, that was why he did not notice them notice him.

He reached the low barrier just in time to see her drop over the edge. She mounted a sandbike and took off towards the ship yards. Talos stepped a booted foot up onto the wall when a heavy hand closed over his shoulder. He was dragged backward.

"Hey General, the boss wants a word," a low voice growled against his ear.

His investors had found him


	9. The Good Word

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating: T
> 
> All in good fun, based partially on a personal experience 😉
> 
> 💙💚❤💜DH

Carol Danvers lay on her stomach on Maria's couch, one arm hanging off the edge, and nursed a space hangover. That was what Maria called it when she first got back into earth's gravity and she was hit with the gut punch of her circadian rhythm. The sun on Earth was different than any other galaxy. Her body knew it. And so the first few days were always spent lying on the couch or in bed. When she wasn't asleep she was eating like a locust.

Yon didn't seem to suffer the same way. He drifted awkwardly around Maria's home every visit, he tried to be helpful but he was usually just confused. She knew Earth was like being trapped in some sort of old west theme park for him. He brought her coffee. Fixing the coffeemaker had been his first chore assigned when they landed.

"Good, you brought the whiz kid," Maria said as they came through the door, bags and duffels full of gifts.

"Hi to you too," Carol laughed dropping her bag and throwing her arms around her friend's shoulders. Maria squeezed her back.

"Mr. Coffee is on his deathbed and I don't have the patience to save him," Maria answered wrapping her friend in a hug.

"Yon, Mr. Coffee," Carol wailed in mock grief as she already felt the gravity dragging her down. She and Maria gave him puppy dog eyes as he sighed and slung Carol's discarded bag over his shoulder.

They were alone now. Maria was Christmas shopping, Monica was at school. Carol groaned as she lifted her feet so Yon could sit on the end of the sofa. He put her coffee on the coffee table. His hand, still warm from the mug, rubbed the centre of her back in soothing circles.

"Why are you fine?" She whined as she melted into the couch.

"I eat regularly, I sleep regularly and this is not my home star," he answered in brief staccato. She groaned again.

"This never happened on Hala," she turned like a beached porpoise and made a sound similar to their death knell. She made grabby hands at the mug until Yon sighed and passed it to her. He held one of her feet in his hand, thoughtlessly smoothing a thumb over the arch of her foot.

"We had more down time between missions, we spent less time away from our atmosphere," he looked at her Santa socks, tilting her foot by her big toe so he could take a better look. "And it did happen on Hala."

"What?" Carol asked thickly, the mug paused halfway to her lips.

"Origin Star Fatigue is common across all species. Hala was not the planet of your birth," he shrugged.

"So you felt like this after every mission?"

"Yes."

Carol began to viciously kick his ribs. Yon twisted trying to block her blows. She punctuated her words with a connecting strike to either his palm or his soft side, "why didn't you tell me?"

"What would you have done?" He teased locking her ankle. "Let me sleep?"

"Maybe. If I'd known. You are such a jerk," she moaned.

"I am your Commander," he growled yanking her foot so she slid suddenly. She cried out in protest and her coffee started to slosh.

"Yon, no," she curled up so she held her coffee between the two of them. The jerk tickled her foot and Carol flailed; splashing coffee all over them, the floor, and the coffee table.

She laughed and groaned as Yon released her.

"Maria is going to kill you," she threatened as she twisted to put her half full mug down and kicked her legs free. Yon was already on his feet going to get a towel. Down his side coffee seeped into his shirt. Carol's thighs were soaked. She stood up sluggishly and stripped her sweats off her legs. She pushed them into the small puddle of coffee on the floor, voila PJ mop.

At that moment, there was a rap at the door.

"I'll get it," Carol called out as she went to the front door. She opened it and a woman in a red knit hat was standing on the porch. She had a light cardigan on. Carol wondered if she was warm in the Louisiana weather.

"Hello, m'am, have you heard the good word?" The woman asked cheerfully. Her eyes barely drifted below Carol's nose but she knew they both knew she had answered the door to a missionary in nothing but a damp t shirt and bugs bunny underwear.

"I am good, thanks," she said softly trying to close the door without seeming rude.

"You seem hesitant. Would you like to talk? We could discuss your reservations," the woman offered with a megawatt grin. Carol glanced over her shoulder. She hoped Yon stayed away. The last thing she needed was to be the semi nude filling in a philosophy sandwich.

"Who is it?" Yon called. The woman leaned in, sniffing out there were more souls to save in the house.

"Don't worry about it," Carol called back. She thought the woman's smile dimmed for a moment.

"This is an excellent discussion for a husband and wife-"

"We're not married," Carol interrupted.

"Oh," the woman's eyes dipped again. Carol flicked up an eyebrow. 

What happened to "judge not"?

"In fact," Carol leaned in close beckoning the woman closer. The lady leaned in, turning her ear as if to receive a secret. "He's an alien."

The woman recoiled. Her smile became a little forced at the edges. Carol saw her eyes drift over Carol's shoulder to where Yon was. Carol turned to look. Yon was stripping off his soaked shirt in the middle of the living room. The woman's eyes went wider. Carol smirked.

"He's here to impregnate me," she whispered, winking at the woman.

"Oh," the woman breathed in a nervous sing song way, "is that so?"

"Yes, and then he and I will fly away in our spaceship," Carol smiled trying to muster a joyous look through the grogginess she felt. Even she could feel it was a little unhinged.

"Okay," the woman nodded vigoursly backing down the steps. Half nervous half skeptical.

"We've been going at it all morning. Maybe I am already with child. The space saviour," Carol turned her eyes heavenward and ignited her powers so she began to glow softly. The woman stumbled off the last step. She paused for a moment to look at Carol in awe before she ran down the sidewalk.

Carol closed the door, extinguishing the glow and dusted off her hands.

"What were you doing?" Yon asked with a raised eyebrow as she drifted back into the living room, a smug look on her face.

"Nothing," she said innocently. He was kneeling in front of the coffee table, gently mopping coffee from the teak. She dropped behind him, between his body and the sofa. She wrapped her arms around his bare shoulders and kissed his cheek.

"You are feeling suspiciously better," he said cautiously as he continued cleaning.

"You know what would help even more," she murmured a hand drifting down his chest. He grunted and pivoted quickly on his knees, bumping the coffee table. More coffee sloshed out of her mug, ruining his work. He ducked and caught her over his shoulder. She laughed as he hauled them both upright. She drummed between his shoulders. "Wait, wait, wait."

"What?" He huffed.

"You have protection, right?"

"Yes, why?" He sounded hesitant.

"Nothing just been running my mouth off. The big guy has a sense of humour."

"Big guy?" Yon asked as he moved them towards the stair.

"Santa," Carol clarified.

"Like on your socks?" Yon asked as he jostled them, taking two stairs at a time.

"Just like."


End file.
